As a Low lifer, the only fair expectation set this way of Alan Sparhawk’s first release following the death of Mimi Parker, his wife, bandmate, and an adored force of heaven here on Earth, was that it would definitively be something beyond traditional. Low in itself, especially in the latter end of their recording output, has never been stylistically predictable and were a far, far cry from the elegiac slowcore they first broke ground with, with 2019’s Double Negative and 2021’s HEY WHAT particlizing their songs through electronic distortions and diffusions. Even so, White Roses, My God is beyond that matter.

This is Sparhawk wrestling with emotions of grief while transforming them with wonder into something sonically reflective of the beguiling human existential experience that is this chapter in his life. It transmits into our air through vocals severely pitch-tuned by vocoder so alien and out-of-body that it places Sparhawk’s psyche onto an equivocal plane. Chalk that up to an experimental restart in stepping out of his own skin, as the songs are crafted from novice synthesizers and programmed electronic drums initially bought for his children’s use — who emerge in their own right as he and Parker’s son, Cyrus, plays bass on several tracks, while their daughter, Hollis, contributes backing vocals.

These instruments in the hands of a creative singular like Sparhawk super-mutate in shape and purpose using the most meditative, minimalized waveforms that are unlike any past structural reference point, simultaneously rigid in their lines yet led reactively by visceral instincts. This personalizes the “otherness” of the listen profoundly, even within the frame of Low musical multiverse. It’s an awe-striking revelation of something inside Sparhawk that confronts the heaviest of tragedy without relenting to evolve new paths forward.

Recommended: “Get Still”, “Feel Something”, “Station

Alan Sparhawk’s White Roses, My God is available now on Sub Pop.

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